“Professor,” Gyrich said tentatively, though he’d already sensed the man’s approach.
Despicable as he found Gyrich, Xavier thought it amusing that the two had found a sort of odd companionship in the disaster that was unfolding. The views they held were radically different, and yet they shared an intense stake in the result of the day’s events.
“Mr. Gyrich,” he acknowledged.
“I thought you’d want to know, that Tilby woman is broadcasting from the MTV offices, on several networks. Seems the captured X-Men have been freed, and if her story turns out to be true, they’re all in there fighting on humanity’s side,” Gyrich said.
Xavier did not need to scan Gyrich’s thoughts. He could hear the man’s emotions in his voice. And the number one emotion was disappointment. Gyrich did not want the X-Men to be heroes. It didn’t fit in with his plan of the way the world should be.
Which was just too bad.
“Thank you,” Xavier said. “Frankly, I’m surprised you’d tell me that.”
“Well, don’t be,” Gyrich answered gruffly. “I may have problems with muties, but you’re an academic, you’re entitled to your opinion. And, frankly, I tend to agree with you on the outcome to this thing. One way or another, when we bring Magneto down, we could very well have a bloodbath. I don’t mind one bit if normal people think the government should carefully regulate mutants. But we don’t need another civil war.”
Xavier was disgusted, but with Gyrich, he was becoming used to being disgusted. He wasn’t at all sure that was a good thing. Being inured to bigotry might dull the edge of the mission over time, he thought.
“Thank you for the information, Mr. Gyrich,” he said, in a tone that was clearly meant to dismiss the man.
He was surprised when Gyrich took the hint, and walked away.
Any other day, Xavier might have launched into a tirade against Gyrich and his prejudiced remarks. Not today. It was getting dark, a beautiful night, and Xavier wanted nothing more than to sleep. But he had a duty to his people, and to his dream, and he would never shirk that duty. Already, he was disturbed by how much he was forced to allow others to shoulder what he considered his responsibility.
There was stubble on his chin. He had not slept for two days. He was a man prone to obsession. There was a martial arts principle which taught that when one dedicated every ounce of energy, every waking moment, to a single goal, little was impossible. Xavier lived his life by that principle, his every breath for the dream.
Moments ago, he had been faltering in his pursuit of that principle, in his faith in the dream.
“Bless you, Trish,” he whispered to himself, and sent the message out into the darkening Manhattan skies.
She heard his telepathic voice, heard his words, felt his gratitude. Professor Xavier felt her smile. That was their only communication, but it was enough.
If Trish could continue to work her magic over the airwaves, and Xavier did the same with his interviews and debates … they might turn the tide. If the X-Men could find a way to defeat Magneto and the Sentinels, Trish Tilby and Charles Xavier himself might be able to make certain the nation didn’t destroy itself in the aftermath.
A lot of ifs.
“If you can keep your head, when all around you are losing theirs,” he said, under his breath once more. But this time, he kept the thought to himself, a bit of whimsy that he would not normally have indulged.
Xavier was getting a little punchy. The lack of sleep was getting to him. He wondered how the X-Men were dealing with it. He would check up on them in a few minutes.
He allowed himself a moment to monitor the progress of Valerie Cooper, Archangel, and Gambit. They seemed to be moving along fine. He would have known if anything significant had gone wrong, because he had kept a telepathic line open to Val throughout their mission. He might not be “with” her all the time, but he was still there, listening peripherally.
Then it was time to make another attempt at communicating with his oldest friend, his greatest enemy.
Xavier closed his eyes, and his mind called out the name: Magnus.
In the psionic world, the realm of telepathy, the astral plane, Charles Xavier stood. Though in reality he could hardly feel his legs at all, his brain remembered what it felt like to walk, to run. Simply to stand tall and proud. Synapses fired in his mind, for the brain was Xavier’s province, and within it, he was capable of anything.
His body was trapped within the steel wheelchair that, despite all the padding he might have installed, would never be truly comfortable. Xavier could not move across a room without that chair.
But in the world of his mind, he stood.
And it was glorious.
Magnus, he called again.
I am here, Charles, though your timing is wretched as ever, Magneto responded.
Their minds linked, and Xavier could see him. Or at least, he could see the mental image that Magneto had of himself. Most people had a mental self-image that was generally better, prettier, stronger, taller—or worse, uglier, weaker, shorter—than they actually were. Magneto was an odd case. His mental self-image was a perfect reflection of the man himself.
But Xavier had no time for pop psychology. There was a war on.
A refreshing change, Magneto thought, his arms spread wide.
Xavier glanced around the Astral Plane, only now becoming conscious of the environment he was psionically creating around them. Unlike the starscape asteroid field he had provided when last he contacted Magneto, this time they stood facing one another in Xavier’s own study, back at the Institute in Salem Center.
I’m exhausted, Xavier admitted. I suppose I thought we could both use a quiet, comfortable space.
Within the psychic manifestation of his study, Charles Xavier walked across the floor, enjoying the feeling of the hardwood beneath the soles of his shoes, until he stood only a few steps before the mutant conqueror.
Conqueror? Magneto thought, surprising Xavier by picking up the thought. He was more tired than he realized. Conqueror brings to mind so many negatives, images of tyranny and slaughter. I want none of those things. Only freedom to live, for myself and the rest of my kind. That includes you, Charles.
You may not want to be a tyrant, Magnus. You may not want to oppress, to slaughter, to destroy. But surely you have realized by now that those things cannot be avoided. You have become what you once most despised, Xavier retorted.
Magneto’s face grew cold, all the amused detachment becoming a shattered mask, falling away in pieces.
How dare you? Magneto hissed.
I am the only one who would dare, and the only one who would know enough to tell you what you’ve done, Xavier thought. As oppressive as society has become for mutants, we are still captains of our own destiny. What you have begun will only lead to the enslavement of humanity. What next, Magnus, work camps?
Magneto’s gray-blue eyes narrowed with fury. His jaw worked as he clenched his teeth together. Then he punched Charles Xavier in the face, nearly breaking his nose.
That hurt, Xavier thought.
We’re on the Astral Plane, Charles, how could that have hurt you?
Perhaps I allowed it to, or maybe I’m too tired to care, too tired to separate conscious from subconscious. But I guess I hit a nerve.
You know you did. That was your intention, Magneto thought. But don’t think it’s going to deter me. I may have lost everything to the Nazis, but I myself am not a Nazi. I will not allow my dream to be corrupted that way.
It isn’t up to you, Magnus, Xavier replied. You can’t micromanage the world. Violence begets violence. No matter that you are more high minded than many of those who serve your cause. That isn’t going to change them. You’ve fed their paranoia and hatred so long, and now all you’re doing is giving them a license to punish humanity for its transgressions.
They need a home, a sanctuary, a place where they can find love and confidence and security. I’m giving them that. I’m giving them salva
tion, Magneto explained, his tone less sure now.
How presumptuous to think you can save them by yourself, Xavier pointed out. You’re no savior, old friend. You aren’t offering the world salvation. We all need to be saved from your dream, not by it.
There was silence then. Magneto sat in one of the soft leather chairs in Xavier’s study. Xavier knew he should sit as well, but he could not bring himself to do so. Though all of it was pretense, it felt like standing, and standing felt wonderful. He wouldn’t sit down, not for a moment.
You may be right, Magneto finally admitted. But even if you are, it is too late to turn back. Hundreds, thousands of mutants have come to take the new life I have offered to them. Most of them are innocents, Charles. Without me, they have nothing but the hellish life they left to come here.
Xavier nodded.
Perhaps you have become a kind of salvation for some, he admitted. But at what price, Magnus? That is my question for you today. At what price? What value is a home that has been razed to the ground by hatred, by war? How happily can one live in the shadow of sixty-foot-high murder machines?
In that moment, Magneto seemed to be listening in despair. To Xavier he seemed older than he had ever been, burdened by the consequences of victory. He felt that he might actually be getting through. Magneto understood what he was saying, there was no doubt about that. But Charles thought Magneto might actually have begun to realize that his dream was flawed.
His old friend, a man whose name was feared in every corner of the globe, looked up at him with a terrible confusion in his eyes. He seemed about to speak. Then Magneto’s eyes went wide with surprise, narrowed with fury.
What a fool you must think me, Charles, he cried, leaping to his feet, to spout this gibberish from the pulpit of your arrogance and expect me to prostrate myself in some foul act of contrition. And what a fool I am to believe your appeal was in earnest, rather than some shoddy attempt to distract me from your true goal.
Magnus, I don’t know what— Xavier began.
The Mutant Empire is not a threat any longer, Charles, it is a reality, Magnus said. There is nothing that you, or your toy soldiers can do about it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I obviously have somewhere else to be.
Even as Magneto faded away, ghostlike, from the Astral Plane, Xavier tried to understand what had happened. He had been so close to breaking through to the man, at least partially. He had felt it in the psychic ether, the psionic communication between them. What could have …?
No, he thought.
In his mind, Xavier turned to see that the corner of the study was gone. In its place, a mental window on the command center of the Alpha Sentinel, where Val Cooper, Gambit, and Archangel were hard at work trying to reprogram the monstrous robots. Xavier was so exhausted, that he had not been able to … no, in truth, he had not even attempted to hide the telepathic connection he still maintained with Val Cooper. Magneto had seen, and understood.
Dear God, he thought, even as the Astral Plane disappeared around him, and back in his flesh and blood body, back in the wheelchair, he opened his eyes.
“What have I done?” he asked aloud.
* * *
AS Valerie Cooper worked, bent over the command-center terminal, furiously trying to get around the failsafes Magneto had implanted in the Alpha Sentinel’s programming, Gambit and Archangel could do nothing but wait. It didn’t seem to bother Archangel much, but it was driving Gambit crazy.
“How’s it going, Val?” Archangel asked.
The woman mumbled something in response.
“I don’ know ’bout you, ’Angel,” Gambit said, “but most of de time, I need words to understand what somebody is trying to say.”
Archangel smiled, and suddenly Val was brought out of her almost trancelike concentration by what Gambit had always thought of as “a change in de weather,” a significant alteration of the emotional climate of the room. He believed that people knew when they were being spoken to, or focused upon.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “Were you guys talking to me?”
“Oui,” Gambit said. “Why don’ you tell us what’s happening. De suspense is starting to get to me. Not to mention dat all dis swaying back and forth as de Sentinel walks … je me sens mal.”
“I don’t speak French,” Cooper said.
“I feel like t’rowin’ up,” Gambit explained, with a weak smile.
“I have the opposite problem,” Archangel said. “I’m tired and hungry and cranky, and I could do without being inside a giant robot that’s being shot at. It’s like having a metal barrel over your head and having people throw rocks at it. What’s the story? We getting out of here soon?”
“I’m trying,” Val answered. “I’m having a problem getting through Magneto’s program, though. The override codes are useless if I can’t get into the system in the first place.”
“Why don’ you try another way in?” Gambit asked. “Dere must be a back door or somet’ing, non?”
Cooper paused before looking down at the keyboard, then at the monitor in front of her. Finally, she looked back at them.
“I’m sure there is. Magneto had to have a back door built in to reprogram them in the first place,” Cooper explained. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this. We know he was involved with the Hellfire Club for a while. Well, before anyone knew he was a mutant, Sebastian Shaw was building Sentinels for the government. He could have put something in, told Magneto. That’s all I can think of.”
“But we aren’t going to get that information, are we?” Archangel reasoned.
“Well, that back door was probably set up for a single use anyway,” she replied.
“So what are our other options?” Gambit asked.
“Only one,” Cooper answered. “Gyrich.”
“You expect him to help you?” Archangel asked.
“Hey,” Gambit broke in, “if he don’ help us, his derriere is on de fire right along wit’ de rest of us.”
“That doesn’t mean he’ll help, though,” Val said. “Still, it may be our best hope. Let me try to get him on the commlink.”
She reached for the comm-unit on her wrist. Before she could speak, something slammed into the Alpha Sentinel, rocking it hard. Val fell to the floor from her seat. Gambit and Archangel stumbled, nearly falling themselves. Another blast struck the Sentinel, and plasma burst through the hole Gambit had blown in the metal hunter’s head.
“Cover!” Cooper yelled, and all three of them flattened out on the floor.
Sparks flew in the command center, but Gambit did not think there had been any real damage. Still, it had been a close call.
“Enough of that!” Val said, and slid into her seat once more. “Let me just adjust the frequency of this thing and …
“Gyrich!” she barked into the comm-unit. “Come in, Gyrich!”
“Who the hell is this?” an unfamiliar but authoritative voice demanded on the link.
“This is Valerie Cooper,” Val snapped. “You know the name?”
“Well, yes, Ms. Cooper, I—”
“Get me Gyrich on the comm,” she said.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, I—” the military man began.
“Now!” she ordered.
“Yes, ma’am,” the soldier complied.
They waited.
“Warning!” the Alpha Sentinel said, its voice loud enough to hurt their ears. “Intruders detected. Commencing termination.”
* * *
“I can’t believe Marko turned coward and ran,” Wolverine snarled, and popped a single claw through the lower abdomen of a mutant whose main power seemed to be particularly repulsive body odor, backed up by a small dose of telekinesis.
“Find a doctor,” he said gruffly to the mutant, and then turned away.
The man would live, but he was most definitely out of the fight.
“You’re showing amazing restraint,” Iceman said, watching the mutant clutch his belly and stumble into the midst of the mosh pit that pa
ssed for a battleground.
Wolverine grunted something in return. Drake was right. While the others were going a bit farther than usual—not killing, but not holding back nearly as much as they normally would—he was drawing the line. Most of their enemies were relatively decent folks duped into a war they had never asked for by Magneto himself. ’Course, if he ended up ripping open Senyaka’s rib cage, or Voght’s, well, that was another story. He had plans for that punk Pyro too. If he ever got his hands on the guy.
“You’re right about Marko, though,” Iceman said. “I mean, I was stunned as anyone to see him fighting with us instead of against us. But then to turn tail and run—it just doesn’t make sense.”
They spun and danced and cut and bludgeoned their way through half a dozen of Magneto’s faithful. Wolverine’s healing factor made up quite handily for his lack of sleep. He had no idea how the others were even standing up.
“Getting dark,” Drake observed at his side.
“Yeah,” Wolverine agreed, “good for us. Bad for them.” “Look around, Logan,” Iceman said. “You actually think we’ve got a shot at winning this thing?”
“More than a shot,” Wolverine answered. “We’re gonna win because that’s the only acceptable outcome. No matter what it takes, we have to win. It wouldn’t hurt if we had more help, I’ll tell ya, but we’ll make do.”
But even as he said it, Wolverine recognized that his words were empty. There was the distinct possibility, given the numbers involved, that they would fail. Off to the left, he could see Rogue and the Beast driving through a parade of attackers. Scott and Jean were somewhere up the street, and Storm was above them, dropping miniature tornadoes and hailstorms on the enemy. She might be their greatest asset in a battle this size, he thought. He didn’t know where the hell Bishop had gotten to. The last time Wolverine had seen him, the future X-Man had been falling out of the sky, and Rogue had barely saved him from becoming so much Manhattan road pizza.
“Time to die, traitors!” cried a thin man with skin like polished ebony and features so angular, they might be diamond sharp.
He slashed long fingers toward Wolverine, who put his fists up, claws in the air, and blocked the attack. The crystalline man grunted his displeasure, but before he could withdraw his deadly hands, Wolverine whipped his claws to either side, neatly slicing off the end of each digit. The man screamed in pain.
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